Gordon Brown is sure to get more 'brick-bats' that plaudits for using YouTube to ask for video questions. Shame. To my mindthis is a great initiative. I feel it works on multiple levels. I have never met him personally but relatives of mine (not labour supporters and members of the public) have said he is a very nice person to meet and talk to. YouTube maybe less adversorial and suit his communication style better. Equally it gives him a direct contact with his 'customers'. What a great way to get feedback on some of the issues the electorate feels unsettled about. Opinion polls and research by others can never replace hard-wired feedback. Policians do hold regular clinics for constituents but being in the Westminister Village does cut you off from reality. YouTube sould help reconnect.

So what lessons can business learn?

• Too many senior executives live in the 'boardroom bubble' where they become detached from the daily issues facing their customers. they see and hear 'massaged' and presented data from their management team. In some cases the boards attitude means that the 'messangers' present the data in the most favourable way possible. YouTube feedback could help the management team engage better with customers. What are the hot issues? What are management doing to address them?
• It is a great 'dip-stick' research tool. Instead of the annual satisfaction surveys that are virtually out of date before being presented why not use YouTube as a form on ongoing 'sentiment' checking?
• Why not extend the principal to employees? Look at research. How many times does it say management is 'out of touch' with employees? Employees do not understand senior managements strategy or their personal role in it? That they are de-motivated as they feel disengaged?Could a YouTube type initiative but behind the 'firewall' help? 

Great use of online video. Fans of the Indiana Jones series posted questions on Seesmic and had members of the cast and crew - including Harrison Ford and Steven Spielsberg reply. One of the fans happened to be a journalist who never even went to Cannes. As she says, the video interchange has a dynamic to it that makes it feel more intimate and direct. Not like the stage managed interviews that many stars undertake. The journalist (Jemima Kiss of the Guardian) was in her PJ's when she recorded the question!

Now imagine senior management of a company using Seesmic or similar products to engage with customers around the launch of a new product or service or respond to feedback following an 'open beta' programme. What sort buzz would that create amongst their customer base? How would that enhance customer relations? Imagine you could get some of the design team to also answer questions? Such a 'corporate outreach programme' would have a positive effect especially when senior management is usually so inaccessible to the customer base (and many employees too!) 

News here of two charities using social media platforms to create 'communities of interest'. Two interesting points. The use by charities of social networking platforms and mutual co-operation.

Charities know that people who give to one charity are likely to continue to support them. Equally other charities focussed on similar good causes are lilkely to be supported by those same people. By linking two complimentary charities there will operational efficiencies and an ability to target donors with a propensity to support both. The item of focus is sometimes called the social object. The product or service that people can identify with.

For commercial organisations it is sometimes not easy to visualise 'communities of interest' or what the social object will be. Fanatics, fans, followers and friends exist for almost everything. Name it and a group is likely to exist. As a company the challenge is finding those groups and plugging into them by listening and joining in the ongoing conversation.

It is not 'in-your-face' interrupt marketing and PR but participating and releasing information the community requests, in a format they find useful. It is building a rapport with them and finding out what you can help them with. For many organisations that will sound a lot like 1to1 marketing and CRM and in many ways it is, but without the expensive software. But it is still a cultural shift for many organisations. Remember 30 years ago the adverts for the Midland Bank - the listening bank? That is what organisations need to become. Many have outsourced many of the customer facing functions. Customer service and customer support is now often outsourced and if not they are not usually integrated into marketing. These are not usually 'barriers' the customers want or enjoy using. They want to engage with the company direct. 

You will find members of your communities are only too eager to help you by making useful suggestions (not always what you want to hear!) on what you can do to improve your customer service or product By monioring the internet buzz you will find out just what people think about you. By engaging with your online community you will be able to get a 365/24 feedback on how you are doing.

Further to my earlier post here is Will McInnes take on the meeting giving much more detail in his blog post about the aims and work-in-progress of the group and how others can participate.

If you are at all interested in social media its use, value and measurement/ROI do check out the measurementcamp wiki and make a date to come to the Coach and Horses in London on June 4th 2008. We will be in a room on the 1st floor above the pub. If the pub doors are closed just knock and go through the bar and up the stairs to find us. Coffee and good conversation will be found...

I was talking to someone the other day about Twitter and trying to find a simple explanation of what I personally got out of using it.

Not sure why but the London coffee house phenomena of the 17^th to 19^th Centuries sprung to mind. In those days this is where people ‘hung out’ to chat, pontificate, argue and in the words of some academics debate and start movements that were to change the world. It was also the place where news and information was exchanged in the days before newspapers existed.

Lloyds of London started as a coffee house business. John Cadbury supplied teas and coffees to London and other provincial city coffee houses before deciding to expand into chocolate. The rest is history and now seems to include a gorilla and Phil Collins!

Sheridan and other famous authors sketched out their ideas for plays and books. Pamphleteers and even scientists held court to present and refine their ideas. It became a social, intellectual and informational melting pot.

Back to Twitter. What do I use it for? I get to hang out with some really interesting people. I listen to their conversations and add my own opinion. I can even start a conversation and see who joins in. I get to mingle with 'cyberpals' and also people I know in 1^st life. We exchange information, social chit-chat and I can ask questions of the Twitter community – and get quick responses. I find out about news and information sources. Things I may have missed through my other sources. Every few hours the ‘coffee crowd’ changes as the globe turns and different people wake up and take in their ‘coffee’. The constant threads of thoughts and conversation moving and changing during the day is amazing and great to be part of.

Just like a real coffee house I can drop back in at certain times of the day for another quick refreshing shot. I can quickly and simply pick up of the conversation threads as they are short and sweet. I also do not follow thousands of people as I want to listen and participate and maybe have a ‘one-on-one’ conversation with someone on a subject or other. Or arrange to meet up somewhere in 1st life. The conversation can be serious. It can can be humorous. You can get boring monologues from some people and others almost everything they say is emotional or intellectually stimulating. Sometimes both.

In other words if you haven’t realised by now…. a shot of Twitter has become part of my daily routine…  

Here is what others are using Twitter for.  

If you want to find out more about the London coffee house phenomena check out this resource. I did not know the Muslim origins of coffee until I read this.

We recently undertook a project for the Health Protection Agency in the UK. They are a special class of NHS Trust and their role is "to protect the community (or any part of the community) against infectious diseases and other dangers to health" (HPA Act 2004).

At the UK level, the Agency is responsible for providing information and services to support a coordinated and consistent UK public health response to national level emergencies – natural and terrorist.

To achieve this the HPA is constantly evaluating and checking systems and procedures. This is done via ‘desktop’ exercises and also ‘live’ exercises. The later really tests the interfaces, processes and systems in an operational setting to the ultimate level. ‘Desktop’ exercises do much of this but ‘live’ exercises just have that ‘operational’ edge.

We were recently asked to make a video documentary on the planning and undertaking of one the largest and most complex multi-emergency services exercises organised in the last few years. In fact it was two scenarios in one. A double emergency which stretched both the operational commanders and emergency services staff both logistically and physically. The value of such ‘stress’ testing of the processes, operations and people cannot be under-estimated. One can speculate if BAA and BA had really ‘stress tested’ T5 they would have not had the ‘go-live’ problems they did have. The lessons from such tests are invaluable which is why a full video recording of all stages of the exercise is so important.

Our own logistics and management of 12 video cameras and crew plus 2 stills photographers and video from a police helicopter were dwarfed by the effort by the HPA to plan and manage the project. They worked for many months with a big group of stakeholders to ensure that the exercise could replicate a real life scenario as closely as possible. Realism is the key.

With over 400 people and 100+ vehicles involved from across the whole of the UK it was no wonder the HPA’s planning took months. The equipment and rescue scenarios were carefully scripted but once the exercise started it took on a life all of its own. The script on the day simply said ‘10am start. 4pm ends if not everyone rescued before then’. For all intents and purposes it was real. The emergency services command structure ran it as a real exercise. Many observers were on hand to monitor what was happening as well as our crews videoing the action and the observers as they undertook ‘hot debriefs’.

The ‘final’ icing on the cake as far as reality was concerned was the work of the Casualties Union and Amputees in Action. Their members participate in these exercises. But it is not just their participation that is important it is the lengths that they go to in replicating injuries that the emergency services would face in a similar real life situation. They are a self-help group doing their own make up. The quality of it has to be seen to be believed. (Have a look at my flickr picture feed - please note: Some images contain graphic make-up). Without a doubt the level of realism of the injuries and the accompanying role play acting of moans and groans plus placement under rubble and in awkward areas really does stretch the emergency services as if they were in a real emergency.

Being the Producer for the documentary was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I was involved in the later stages of planning. I also had to evaluate and select the locations of the fixed crews and plan for the crews who followed the action. We even had a camera operator under the rubble filming some of the rescues from a 'worms eye view' as it were. My role meant I was far closer to the action compared to any television or newspaper reporter would be able to. Not a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look but really an ‘in-the-middle-of-the-action’ one. It was amazing.  I was able to see how the unsafe areas have to be physically shored up before the rescuers are even allowed on the site to start (no point risking rescuers lives whatever the urge they may feel to get into action). I saw first hand how multiple teams of people  – police, fire service, ambulance and medical staff - have to all work together in a coordinated way to focus on the injured. You can see in some of the pictures the team extracting a casualty from below the rubble by first having to use ‘jack’ hammers and cutters to open a space to reach them. The emergency teams often do not have enough room to stand up or easily move around. They literally have to crawl to reach the injured, comfort them, stabilise them and then extract them. This can take a long time. In some cases it was hours. Canned noise, smoke and simulated burst water pipes add to the realism of the situation.

In the end we had over 70 hours of video to distill into a production the HPA would be using for internal debriefing and education.

If you care about PR and marketing communications in the new online digital world you should check out what is happening with Social Media MeasurementCamp 08 and if you can come along and join us at the next meeting!

Thanks to the enthusiasm of Will McInnes a wide range of people (clients, PR agencies, web design agencies, consultants and digital/social media agencies - check out the list) are gathering once a month to pool their collective experiences, knowledge and contacts on all things social media. A sort of ‘best practice’ community.

At the heart is the need to better understand what has to be measured, how and with what?

We know at one level we need qualitative metrics. Just what are people saying about a our clients, their products and services? What is the tone of the conversations and what is the trajectory (more, less or the same)? Equally we need to understand quantitive metrics.  How many comments are there? More or less than the competition? Better or worse? Who is making them? On what subject areas? How influential are those commentators? What makes them influential apart from them being a customer or prospect in their own right? Which influencers are tracked and monitored by the traditional media and so become the source of stories there? Where do online media versions of press and broadcasters fit in? What about journalists who blog? How do we influence this mix of bloggers and measure the outcomes and cross-compare with other strategic communication projects?

What have companies and agencies learnt that works well and what works less well? Do we know why?

What tools exist to help the tracking and analysis of the online digital world? Can it be fully automated or has sentiment and tone to be judged by human analysis? What paid for services and tools exist? What free or low cost tools exists? Can we combine multiple measures into a single client ‘dashboard’? Can all the same measurements be used across all campaigns? What about the different analysis and measurement tools - can the same ones always be used on every campaign?

We have just started the work of answering these questions. It is work-in-progress and will take a while to reach a conclusion (or at least some conclusions) but in the meantime the wiki is the place to go to keep updated on our work and also check out the next meeting date if you want to come along. Our objective is not to search for the ultimate answer as we generally agree that different clients will need different things for different campaigns. One size will not fit all. We want the wiki to become a 'guideline resource centre'.

If you are interested then come along. The more the merrier. Remember in the new Web 2.0 era  - ‘wisdom of the crowds’. Join the MeasurementCamp 08 crowd and help improve its wisdom. 

The other day I posted about how some bloggers are reacting by blocking e-mail pitches from some PR agencies.

I mentioned Todd Defren who had found his agency had fallen foul of a blogger blocking them along with many other agencies big and small. A sort of one strike and you are out rule. Ouch!

Todd left a comment on my post that I have not responded to yet. Sorry Tom. I will. In it Tom mentioned that one reason he felt the blocking was unfair was that the 'do not pitch/private' e-mail address of the blogger was in fact published as the contact address by a directory listing service. In this post by Kami Huyse she confirms the point Todd made and adds some additional thoughts of her own about the subject and how it can be resolved satisfactorily for all sides.

One of the challenges in PR terms as I mentioned in my earlier post is volume versus customisation and targeting of messages. A client tends to expect to see results based upon a volume metric. I know I did when I was a Marketing Director in industry. It just did not feel right to be targeting less than what we could. All other communication is measured by a mix of 'reach and volume' and response volumes. Will clients pay for agencies to invest the time and resources to check every blogger before contacting them? Does the campaign deadlines allow the time? Equally is it fair to expect bloggers to receive generic and largely untargeted press releases?

I don't think there is an easy answer except for PR agencies to keep trying their best to target what they can and push back on clients when either time or client expectations do not match what needs to be done.

Shel Israel has another great interview this time with Richard Binhammer, Director of Corporate Communications at Dell.

Richard talks about how they had become detached from their customers and suffered the loss of their number 1 position. They have been working hard over the last two years to use social media to help engage with their customer base. They have made mistakes, learnt and come back again the stronger for it. Richard talks about how listening and then acting on customer feedback has reduced negative sentiment by over 50%. Listening he feels is key.

Whilst ROI measurement is needed it is not the only driving force behind their strategy. Having customer communication pipelines via social media tools and knowing who is saying what about you online could be considered basic business needs.

Richard also comments on how they identified, tracked and analysed what the online community was saying about them. Whilst they are looking at a richer set of online reputation tracking and management tools much of it is still 'cut,paste and manually analyse'.  

So how are US CxO's using social media tools and digital technology? (Thanks to Steve Ruebel via his twitter account)

A new research report from IPSOS MediaCT details the information. The full pdf is here. Highlights from the report:

• 71% own cellphones with cameras and multi-messaging,
• 68% own laptops.
• 40% own iPods.
• 36% have Blackberries 
• 68% have downloaded videos or clips from websites or received email newsletters/alerts on their computers.
• 49% have streamed or watched broadband videos from websites on their computers.
• 78% make flight/hotel bookings online
• 57% regularly buy products or services online.
• 72% believe keeping up with the latest technology is vital to the success of their businesses 
• 30% read blogs
• 4% contribute to blogs.

Ever wondered which bloggers you should be talking to about your technology clients? Here is a great list

If you are in PR and want to know who the most influential analysts are and how to contact them check out this list of analysts who twitter. (Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang from a post via twitter)

It seems Twitter was first to break the news of the earthquake in China. It is interesting the comments a BBC journalist makes on their blog about how its speed and multiple sources plus ability to link to 'citizen journalists' video and photo uploads means it could be a serious tool for news gathering.

The media need to engage with this new technology. Even the most well served news gather organisation cannot be everywhere. Eye witness reports are a valuable source of information and have a 'first person' perspective that journalists who come to the scene later will not have. They can look at other aspects and 'backfill' details as they become available.

For many in the media Twitter could become a very valuable source of 'heads up information'. As we live in a 24/365 world that few minutes will be an early warning that gives them an edge in getting to the story before their rivals for that important 'scoop'.

Most PR agencies are struggling to understand how best to engage with bloggers and other influential online communities. In the meantime many other agencies are treating bloggers like yet another @name to be added to an e-mail 'blast' list. Bloggers are reacting negatively to what they consider 'spam'. The latest to raise it as an issue is Stowe Boyd.

Check out Todd Defrens blog post on his agency being blocked by a blogger and all the comments. Todd has a great 'Must Read' guide for his team on how to best engage with bloggers. At the heart of the issue between Todd and the blogger was her request not to be contacted by personal e-mail and when Todd's agency did just that. As a result she blocked his agency and added them to a publicised 'blocked list'.

The challenge is time, attention to detail and expected behaviour. When preparing to release a press release the mentality in the client and agency is usually one of numbers. We live in 'Numbersland'. PR agencies and clients understand the culture of this country. PR teams can use an online listing resource to check if there are publications likely to be 'interested' in the press release. In ‘Numbersland’ the objective is to create the biggest list by looking at everyone that could possibly be interested in the news. 'Sweet spot' publications will the core of this list but better also add lots of others just in case and it will impress the client as it will be a big list. The release is not being hand delivered but e-mailed so who cares if some of the outer targets are wrong? What is the worst that will happen? They publications will not open the e-mail. They will not write a negative article about you. In ‘Numbersland’ try showing a list to a client with a handful of publications on. They expect a big list!

Clients understand numbers. We need hundreds of sales leads - not just a few. With mass marketing we need thousands of targets as the response rates of x% will mean from thousands targeted only a few hundred will show interest. We will simply keep contacting the non-responders until they do get the message and respond. It is not that they are not interested but simply that they are not interested enough yet. Keep at it.

Bloggers are different. They do not live in ‘Numbersland’. They want to be treated as individuals. Clients have to be educated too. It is not easy for PR to break long time behaviours but if they do not want to be blocked as ‘spammers’ they will have to.

On the same theme here is a post by Brian Solis on TechCruch about the evolution of the press release into the social media release.

A friend just got a letter through the mail from the Wycombe Public Safety Team. What is interesting is that they live on a nice middle class estate. So what sort of targeting is being applied to this? Political or policing? Is this really targeting a problem or trying to impress a ross ection of the electorate that 'something is being done'?

On the one hand what they are trying to do is very laudable. They want to help people who’s life is being made a misery by anti-social behaviour. But for me it feels more like a Stasi approach to getting the population to ‘spy’ and report on each other.

The council and members of the police now are working in one team and sharing an office. Co-operation is OK but co-habitation and joint targets and objectives? That starts to feel uncomfortable. Who makes a decision on what is anti-social and where does it start to drift into cross cultural intolerance? Will the council apply this fairly? As a thought I wonder how the public feel about the anti-social nature of a fortnightly bin collection or the fact that my waste paper box does not have a lid so when it rains the paper disintegrates everywhere? What about the fact whenever I pass my local council office many lights seem to be on? Is it not anti-social to be so poor at energy efficiency.

Back to the anti-social information pack (3 pieces of paper and a glossy A4 brochure – how much did that cost to mail beyond the 24p postage?). The council helpfully defines anti-social behaviour as ‘behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons…’. Now that is a wide definition. The council helpfully enclose instructions on gathering photos and sound recordings of the incident. You can name witnesses even if they did not give permission to be included. You are encouraged to keep an Incident Diary Blog and include your name and details. It does say that the form maybe uses in any court case and even without your name will be passed to the defendant and his team.

The example they use on the form is ‘loud noise from a stereo….gave me a headache very upsetting.’

Now I wonder if I can complain about the man opposite who always mows the lawn without his shirt on. He is no Adonis and I find it upsetting. He also has poor taste in shirts when he wears one. I find his clothes taste ‘alarming’.

Now what about the neighbours children? They are always playing in the street. Streets are for cars and they should be upstairs playing on their computers.

Important action but what is the main result – apart from encourage people to use more forms, generate more statistics, and have to recruit and manage more teams? Is it not risking turning us into a nation of ‘walkers and stalkers’? This seems very much in line with Central Government policy after the recent experiment and announcement of ‘harassment’ and in your face policing of SUSPECTS announced by Jackie Smith.

A return to the discredited ‘sus’ laws used mainly against ethnic minorities in the 1970’s and 1980’s but now with added ‘people power’.

Thanks to Scott Monty for this link to what Scott Mitchell, a fan of Disney is doing to engage with and consolidate user generated content. This is a great exampled of fan-power using the digital world to achieve a massive outreach.

Having been to Disney theme parks many times over the years as my kids were growing up I can think of loads of valuable information that could be shared and would have made my families enjoyment even greater. We used to spend time trying to find characters so my kids could get their autographs. What about a twitter alert telling us where they were? Queues - where are they forming and how long? Where is a ride with a shorter wait? With two excited sub 10 year olds it can make a heck of a difference to have some insider knowledge. Where is the best place to stay - on site or off site? Are the character breakfasts worth the waiting list and money? (yes and yes)  

So what should other companies do? First realise the potential. What is amazing is that this is customer generated. People are in effect members of of your sales and marketing department. Treat them as such. They do not want paying. They just want to be acknowledged and given access to people and information from the company that will help them do a better job for their 'readers'. Ask them what you can do to help them.

It does not matter what sort of product or service you have - it will have a potential fan base.